i wish you knew
by NawN-ee
Summary: A letter to Heero unnerves him as he discovers his past
1. A letter

I wish you knew

Dear Mr. Yuy,

I only hope that you read this letter till its end. Even if you believe it to be a fabrication I only ask that you read it. This letter is in no way meant to harm you but to inform you and perhaps, wishfully, fulfill you in some way. Please know that I have no expectations of you for you have far exceeded them all. I am forever proud, grateful, and want nothing more than your happiness.

Your father was Schamotta Issei. He was a half German and Japanese individual who maintained a somber disposition. I met him one night at a gala at someone's mansion. I did not know whose it was at all for you see, a friend and I snuck in. We were awful misbehaving teenagers who together got ourselves into many a peccadillo. Truly, it was the main reason I was not invited into such events. I was indeed a part of their social circle and had I behaved I would most likely be having tea with Relena Peacecraft herself. However, I hated the segregation of social classes. My best friend was someone who hung around outside my private school. Juniper was a wonderful girl whom I believed to be my true love. She was most certainly my first love.

Regardless, I met your father through her. She found out all about the fancy shindigs through him and he found out about our shenanigans through her. To this day their relationship eludes me. I was anxious to meet her informant and I later discovered he was just as anxious to meet me. When I met him I was terribly disappointed.

Whereas my friend was the pinnacle of the verve of life he was the immaculate nature of monotony. Or so I thought. He had dark roan brown hair that he pulled back into a most severe braid. I suppose it would be somewhat like Mr. Chang's and Mr. Maxwell's combined. He was buffed an polished like everyone else in my social class and was pretty much a stuffed shirt. But there were depths I could not imagine. The moment I fell in love with him was the moment he got on the stage that night.

He sang. Not like many of the pop idols of different eras or the famed opera singers. He simply sang as though whatever was stuffing his shirt needed to break free. He had a true baritone voice that simply swept me away but it was his hair that made me love him. As he sang, a single lock of hair came loose from his braid. It gently bobbed along his forehead and then simply cupped his face. I knew all was not what it seemed. I was right.

In a few more months I discovered that he was connected with the Japanese Yakuza. He was a test subject of these substances that altered and enhanced his physical capabilities. However, he was the second test subject. Juniper was the first. But she outsmarted them or so she said. The sassy girl went and picked up AIDS gladly. Whereas Issei had volunteered, Juniper had been forced. I cried for them as they laughed at me. Juniper died soon afterward much to my mother's joy. It was in my mother's joy did I realize just how much I hated the world I existed in.

My mother donated money to the Yakuza for the tests. My father was a deceased mobster. It all sounded so bizarre but true. The day of Juniper's death I cried in the arms of Issei. That night he told me he never really wanted to enter the Yakuza. He was simply good at it…that was till Juniper told him about me. Apparently she always said I was dumb as a rock but more fun than a barrel of monkeys. He liked me for my naïveté but loved me for the wit that got Juniper and me out of trouble and uncaught.

Soon after we tried to run away from everything. Running away from the wrong never seems to work. It still doesn't really. He tried to retire on his pay and I always felt guilty for using dirty money. It's something we never really understood about each other but regardless, we did love each other. We lived humbly for a while and we believed things had settled down. That's when I became pregnant with you. Despite all the horrid things many women say about pregnancy, I guarantee you Mr. Yuy that they were the best nine months of my life.

I never wanted to be like my mother who withheld love. Issei rubbed my belly and I tried to infuse you with all my love. I planned on how I would kiss even the smallest of your cuts better. I became so impatient for you that I began to read you bedtime stories while you were in there. I even made your father sing lullabies. I swore that I would bake you chocolate chip oatmeal cookies every Friday at 5:00 p.m. so that you would have a treat at the end of the week. And every Sunday would be family day. When you became a rebellious teen I would get Issei to spar with you and work out your frustration. I would help you with your homework and croon to you at night. I would say:

"I love you forever

I like you for always

As long as you're living

My baby you'll be."

Then you were finally born on February 9th. I chose a name to bless you, my son. But, what good is a blessing you do not know and cannot define. But I thought you should know now. Not for me, but for yourself. You should know that you were loved. You deserve to know that you were loved.

I named you Akanke. It was my hope that all who met you would love you. But, I do not believe that this became true. All through the war I wanted to tell you "You are loved, you are loved." I saw you at a private school and I knew it was you. I snuck in but you were gone.

Three months later your father was found. When he refused to return to the lab, he was gunned down. You were in the backroom of the little bookshop we owned and managed. I saw him killed and turned to run towards you. But, they had already entered. That night you were carried off by an old friend of Issei's: Odin Lowe. Though he had not stopped what happened to me that night, he did not participate either. He told me he would care for you aand then left me for dead. I survived.

A loyal patron came to purchase a book and saw me…and saved me. I vowed to get you back but I had no means. I shut down the shop and took Issei's dirty money to follow you. I went back to my mother. She attempted to poison me.

I wish I knew what happened to you. I wish you could have known that you were loved. I wish could have held you and read to you and protected you. I wish I could have been there for your first love and I wish you had some semblance of normalcy. All trough the war all I did was hide and wish and look for you. But, I did not know your name…nor where you would turn up. I finally returned to my bookstore. I followed you here and have watched you know for nine months. Issei's old friends have found me again but have not struck. So I will be leaving before they can. But before I said goodbye to you again I wanted to tell you…

Even though I have not laughed with you, cried with you, or felt pain with you, know that I love you.

Your mother.

Heero Yuy stared at the bloodied piece of parchment in his hand. He had found it in the coat pocket of the rather vivacious book shop keeper. He frequented their often as she always seemed so understanding with him. She had become a friend. She now lay dying in a hospital with a bullet wound through her head…her tenacity for life was admirable. The doctors had found the envelope and handed it to him. It was addressed to him so he had read it. Now he didn't know if that was a good idea. He just didn't know.


	2. Duo & Madame Bookkeeper

What's in that letter.(Part One)

Duo Maxwell, boyfriend extraordinaire to one Heero Yuy, helplessly watched his lover. Heero was sitting quiet and despondent next to Madame Bookkeeper's hospital bed. The kindly old lady was the owner of a bookshop the retired gundam-pilots often terrorized just down the street from Preventer HQ. Really, it had been WuFei that had first gone in but it wasn't long before she attracted the rest of the crew. People often called Duo gregarious and charming as well as obnoxious and annoying. Madame Bookkeeper was the former without the latter.

At first it disconcerted both Heero and himself that she was so warm and welcoming. She had a genuine interest in their mental and physical well-being. This is not to say she was one of those grannies that were doddering and sweet all the time. Actually, sometimes she was as cranky as an old codger with the sass of a teenage girl.

The first time Duo visited the shop WuFei had lured him in with Madame Bookkeeper's peanut butter brittle. They were putting in overtime at Preventers finishing paperwork. The whole time Duo whined to WuFei about how the best agents shouldn't be doing any gorramn paperwork. Though WuFei was inclined to agree he would never provide Duo with that satisfaction. So, instead WuFei promised to take Duo to have the best peanut butter brittle in the whole of the universe if Duo would shut-up and finish his work in the next half-hour. Duo rose to challenge immediately. Duo's logic followed as such: Wufei wasn't fond of sweets, therefore if Wufei praised these cookies they had to be damn good.

Half an hour later WuFei took him to the bookshop that very day. It was already past seven in the evening and Duo complained loudly that WuFei had lied. They were clearly standing in front of a closed hippie bookstore called Dreamerie. WuFei cuffed Duo's ear and swiftly proceeded to yell up at an open window. Apparently Madame Bookkeeper lived atop her shop. She tried to hide her delight but with her open face she failed miserably. In a shrill falsetto voice she yelled down at WuFei: "Oh Romo, Oh Romo, wherefore art thou, babe?" WuFei snorted and gave a much more Shakespearean response followed by a short lecture on crazy women running bookstores while mutilating good literature. This was when Madame Bookkeeper stunned Duo so badly that he nearly forgot to follow WuFei. Madame Bookkeeper told WuFei that with his attitude he could let himself in and then she swiftly flipped him the bird and disappeared from the window.

Duo didn't realize that WuFei had climbed up the ivy covered trellis until he saw the window filled with WuFei's austere visage with laughing eyes. At this point Duo was quite certain that WuFei had been replaced with a pod person or the woman in the window had been a witch. WuFei continued to stare down at Duo then finally arched an elegant brow as if to say, 'are you coming?' Duo shook off his goose pimples and dashed up the trellis.

Once inside, Duo could smell freshly baked goods and see crazy quilts with pointy triangles that looked like teeth. The room, the living room, was cluttered and mismatched but very cozy at the same time. Duo was scared. What sort of crazy old dingbat let some guy and some guy's friend into her home? There was no way WuFei knew her for more than a few weeks – a couple of months at most. He was distracted from his thoughts when aforementioned crazy granny emerged from a kitchenette with a tray full of sumptuous freshly baked triple chocolate fudge brownies lightly frosted with icing sugar and peanuts. To the side of the scrumptious snacks were cheap mismatched china with what he imagined to be tea inside. She carried three cups.

She paused briefly to give Duo a once over, gave a mock glare to WuFei, and proceeded down a short hall into her bedroom. Tea best have not been spiked with anything. WuFei grabbed Duo and followed after her. As soon as WuFei entered the room he huffed that she was supposed to be making peanut butter brittle, not brownies. She just gave him a saucy grin and enticed him to try one while offering Duo one at the same time. Duo wanted to question what was in the dark fudge goodness, but let his trust in WuFei win out. Boy, was he ever glad. The brownies were possibly the best thing his taste buds ever had the glory of tasting in his life. He quickly crammed another into his mouth as the old lady handed him some tea. WuFei after a wrinkle f his nose tried one and announced that he knew before hand the snack would be delectable but he had promised Duo some brittle.

The lady pouted, which Duo noted looked awful cute in a strange way on this prune, and then smacked Duo's thigh and told him that he must come back tomorrow then, during store hours. After that she toddled off to the kitchen and came back with a tray with a single enormous plate in the center laden with pasta. She put it on the center of her bed and pulled out three forks from her pocket. WuFei explained that he had a dinner date with the bookstore owner and had invited Duo on a whim. Then she explained that she hated doing dishes so they were eating from the same plate. Duo stared at the mound of pasta and could not control his salivary glands. It was an uphill battle from the get go.

He bounded to the bed with WuFei sedately following and dove in. It was bacon carbonara her dearly departed husband's favorite dish. It was not as good as the stuff her hubby made she said, but it certainly was better than when she first began. The lady had just seemed so open and honest about her life, which is probably what attracted WuFei, that by the end of the night Duo was laughing with her as they both shared their shenanigans. He just fell in love with her immediately.

That changed when he and Heero came in the next day for some of her promised brittle.

TBC…

*I'm so sorry! The only time I ever seem to write is laaate at night and it seems that I can never do it for long. Do forgive me but I hope you enjoy this chapter despite some typos! ~NawN-ee*


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